This will be my last reply. Where exactly did I say “gunning down children and covering up the circumstances as not worthy of the news and no reason anyone should get upset” exactly? I think I’ve made clear this is a pretty horrible thing IMHO.
However, that’s not the same as me saying I think Manning should be called a hero/ine for breaking a very serious oath, knowing full well the consequences. I don’t see it as the same issue, frankly. And if Manning had ONLY released the helicopter footage, let’s be honest – we’d never be having this conversation, because s/he would NOT have been charged in such a way, to this extreme! It was the hundreds of thousands of State Department memos ON TOP OF the helicopter footage that really brought down the wrath. And NONE of that was necessary, in order to bring attention tot he Apache incident. Dare I say, most people who think of Manning don’t remember the Apache footage at all, and instead remember the memos. So releasing everything actually got in the WAY of bringing more light to the Apache incident.
I’ve got to add one thing, guys. . because it’s been bothering me.
Wanting somebody to be free and happy, I’m all about that.
But wanting somebody else to suffer, to be imprisoned, or to be tormented. . . that’s just a sign of how horribly we’re raised as humans, it’s not RIGHT. You don’t know somebody, you only understand them as a cartoon, and a part of you wants to impose your will on them like that?
I bet a lot of people here who like Manning don’t like George Zimmerman or Dick Cheney, right? They did awful things and deserve some sort of punishment, is that what you’re thinking?
There’s no going halfway here. People should either leave Manning alone or want him to be happy and encourage his future enjoyment. George Zimmerman’s stuck living with something that most of us will never have to, and we should wish him a happy life and emotional healing, not some punishment because he polarizes us.
Even Dick Cheney, who is so hard to love, is, in fact, loved. I don’t know him, neither do you. I’m not saying that he should be president, in fact he’s demonstrated poor judgement in the face of complicated issues . . . but that should ONLY mean that you don’t him influencing you and yours. It should end there, and if he’s happy gardening or writing fan fiction or studying bugs, we need to either be happy for him or just leave him alone.
This is POISON people, and it’s ruining us. We can’t get to the future if we aren’t letting people escape from their own pasts, can we?
You definitely said it was horrible, and I apologize if I cast you otherwise. However, you also said it’s “not murder” but “an inevitable part of war”, that Manning had a job where she “DAMN WELL should know had to do with killing people en masse, and oftentimes as a byproduct, innocents”, and how “if you don’t know that war entails a TON of this, you’re daft”, and finished off with Manning revealing things “we all know are going on anyway during war.” If that was meant to imply something other than that this incident should have been regarded as business as usual rather than upsetting news, it was very confusing.
If it were only about them, I would agree, but these things do weight our society. Punishing or freeing Manning is a strong statement about how we value confidentiality compared to what she revealed. Punishing Zimmerman says it’s not ok to go after minors you deem suspicious and then shoot them should there be a confrontation; setting him free tells people who are used to being deemed suspicious it’s on them to handle that. Whether Cheney enjoys a comfortable retirement or war crime tribunal says a lot to any VP who would consider similar actions.
There are now procedures in place that allows prosecution of military members who cross the line and kill innocent civilians. Sergeant Calley was prosecuted for such action during the war in Vietnam, and the have also been cases where this has happened during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Private Manning should have taken his concerns to the proper level. Revealing military secrets that places in jeopardy the lives of his fellow soldiers is unacceptable. I think that the classified information that he disclosed went far beyond simply reporting wartime atrocities.
